[Spellyans] 'gwlas'

[Eddie Climo]

Consider these pairs of words in Cornish, both in their root and lenited forms:
	glas / gw·las	>	las / w·las
	glan / gw·lan	>	lan / w·lan
	grys / gw·rys	>	rys / w·rys
I believe that none of the pairs are homophonic, a view supported by the spellings: the <w> isn't there by accident! Each of the words has a long final vowel, which is where the stress would lie (as indicated by the raised full-stop).

So I agree with Craig's description (from toponymic sources) of the <w> syllable as being short and unstressed (which is just what we hear with the cognates in Welsh, each of which has a short 1st syllable and a long stressed 2nd one: gw·lad, gw·lan).

Eddie Climo

On 2012 Ebr 10, at 10:15, Craig Weatherhill wrote:

> How was the GWL 'gwlas' pronounced?  And the WL of its lenited form?
> 
> The following historic spellings for 'Land's End' are of interest:  Pen an ulays 1504;  Penwolase c.1540; Pedden an Wolas, Pedn a Wollaz c. 1680; Pedn an Woolaes 1754.  (The <ay> of 1504, and <ae> of 1754 are the Late Cornish long A, like the <ai> of "air").
> 
> The 1504 <ulays> suggests to me that -las might have been preceded by a very short, or weak, "oo" sound, as in "wool", perhaps as briefly spoken as the Y of <yma>.  What do others think?
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